


Burn higher

by LeafoftheFox



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Asexual Character, Bodyswap, Brooding, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gun Crime, I can't do romance, Implied/Referenced Torture, Platonic Soulmates, Protectiveness, Romantic Soulmates, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Siblings, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates, Telekinesis, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, all the kinds of soulmarks, no beta we die like men, so that's mostly just mentioned, soul strings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:54:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeafoftheFox/pseuds/LeafoftheFox
Summary: Getting your soulmate marks is supposed to be a happy event, the one person who'll make you the most happy. Life doesn't always work out like that, at least not immediately.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Koriand'r Metioned, Jason Todd & Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

Jason frowned down at the maths sheet before him, staring as though that would make it magically disappear. With the crazy things he's seen, he wouldn't be very surprised if it did.

“Ugh. Homework is the worst” he groaned after few seconds when the staring tactic proved ineffective. He reached for his pencil, only to start at the sight of red on his hand.

  
“Whuh?” He questioned dazedly. He hesitantly touched his seemingly bloodied knuckles, only to discover they were dry and uninjured. As vivid as the image of injury was, his skin remained smooth, like someone had painted the injury on.

He gasped excitedly. Sure, it wasn’t good that his soulmate was getting into fights, but he had a soulmate! Growing up in crime alley and now being a crime fighter, Jason knew what it looked like when someone threw a clumsy punch with all their strength, and that was exactly the injury that had shown up on his hand. His soulmate was lucky they hadn't broken their thumb. He quickly checks to be sure. Yup, thumb is fine.

  
“Alfred!” he called rushing to tell the bat butler the good news. His socked feet slid over the well polished wood as he went, a manically excited grin on his face. He raced round corners in search of the man. He brainstormed how he'd tell B when he got back from his meeting. Maybe he'd even tell Dick!

A flash of violent colour in a mirror caused him to skid to a stop on his way. His childlike delight faded as he approached the mirror. Sick dread curled in his stomach as he slowly filled the frame of the mirror. He swallowed and, reaching up with a shaking hand, pulled down his high collar to reveal his neck and chest.

  
“No!” He exclaimed, his face twisting into furious anguish.

* * *

  
Upon hearing master Jason’s call, the butler neatly placed down his cleaning supplies and walk gracefully towards the library, where the boy was supposed to be doing homework. He came across the large room empty of human life with papers and pencil strewn across the floor. The Englishman set out in search of the young master and came across him stood, frozen in front of one of the many mirrors that littered the manner. He frowned disapprovingly and opened his mouth to berate the eleven year old for avoiding his homework, something he had tried a number of times before.

All intentions of admonishment faded at the brokenness when Jason uttered:  
“No!”

He started in surprise.

  
“Master Jason, What-?” The butler began, stepping forward to investigate. His voice escaped him as soon as the boy turned around to reveal the large purple hand print that covered his neck.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason paced back and forth across the length of his bedroom. Three days. Three. Days since his soulmate’s injuries had started showing up and he had nothing. Why couldn’t he have a soul name or a timer? At least then he’d be certain when he met his soulmate. Instead, he had to sit here worrying as more and more injuries painted themselves across his skin.

  
B had made him stay home from school until his soulmate’s injuries healed a little more. The boy already had people on his tail for being a charity case street kid, he didn’t need his soulmate being harassed whenever they turned up because Jason couldn’t keep some traumatic event under wraps. Except… the injuries weren’t just disappearing. The day before, small nicks, increasing in depth and length until they had to be called lacerations started showing up. Jason was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the obvious conclusion and by the way B avoided eye contact, he knew the man felt the same way.

  
As Robin, even for as short a time as he had been, Jason had seen a lot of awful things.

  
These marks, systematic in placement and timing, designed to hurt.

  
And what sickened him the most: The raw, lurid red wrapping around both his wrists.

  
Torture. It was torture. And he couldn’t do anything about it.

  
With a yell of frustration, Jason came to a stop at his bedroom wall, punching it once in a vain effort to vent his anger. He left his fist there against the wall as he thought.

  
The problem with the soul injuries form of marking was that it could come in at any time. There was no scientific consensus on a trigger like with first words which only acme in as soon as the other could speak or soul name which came in when the other was named or even soul string which linked the two together when they came within a mile of each other.

  
There was only one thing Jason knew for certain about his soulmate and that they were under fourteen. That was by virtue of the one thing all soulmate groups shared: Transference. When the oldest reached fourteen, at the exact moment they were born, all soulmates would swap bodies. This would happen again when the next reached fourteen and then the next however many. Jason wasn’t one of those bigoted idiots that thought more the two people in a soul grouping was unnatural just because they were in the minority.

So. Jason just had to wait and hope that his soulmate turned fourteen soon and he could find enough information about their location to save them. There was also the possibility of a mental link of course, but the eleven year old couldn’t bring himself to hope for that. Mental links only came in for about forty percent of people when all participants had done their final body swap at twenty one or when on member had an experience so traumatic that their mind reached out to their soulmate’s for help. He didn’t like to think about how very possible it was that his soulmate would reach that point soon.

He leant against the wall, head back and eyes closed. How could a hero be so useless to the person most important to them? How could he even call himself a hero?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been taking too long for me to get stuff written, so I decided to post this shorter chapter sooner. I know it's mostly exposition here, but I've got more in the works and a lot plotted out. Hope you enjoyed, please comment! :)  
> ~Leaf


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter leads directly on from the last and is hopefully a nice even mix of angst and fluff :D

A calm ‘knock, knock’ came from his door, firmly breaking him from his reverie.

  
“Hey Jason, can I come in?” a light female voice asked evenly.

  
Jason slumped back into his usual posture and stepped away from his barely scuffed wall. That thing was annoyingly sturdy. The satisfaction of breaking something is impossible to get from that wall, unless you punched hard enough and bad enough to break your own fingers. At least there was no clean up afterwards.

  
“Yeah, go ahead,” he called back with a forced lack of care.

  
The door cracked open enough for a head to poke through. Jason took a moment to appreciate how well oiled the door was kept that it didn’t make a sound when it opened. The purposefully left creaky floorboard just outside, however, was neither here nor there.  
At his flicker of a smile in greeting, the girl opened the door further and stepped into the room, a sympathetic smile on her lips and a rather large handbag on one arm. She set the bag down by the door.

  
“How you are doing?” she asked.

  
“Good,” the boy deadpanned.

  
“Uhuh?” she raised a pointed eyebrow and gave the many ‘injuries’ a look over.

  
“I’m fine Babs,” he huffed in annoyance.

  
“You don’t have to be,” she smiled sadly.

  
“Yeah, whatever,” he hunched his shoulders and darted his eyes down and away from the girl’s scrutinisation

.   
“Well. It doesn’t look like the, ah, marks are going to be letting up any time soon,” her lips pursed at the boy’s flinch, but she forged on “So, B asked me to come help you out.”

  
Barbara picked her handbag back up, unzipped it and pulled out a selection makeups that he couldn’t identify. He tried to ignore the swirly writing and pastel colours on some of the boxes.

  
“We gotta find out what suits your skin tone best and you better be paying attention because I’m not going to come help you every morning. I have stuff to do you know,” she quirked a teasing smile.

  
Jason huffed, but went along with the change of tone.

  
“What could you possibly have to do that’s more important than tending to me?” he raised a mischievous eyebrow.

  
“Oh yeah, little prince? See if I help you again with you being so rude,” she joked, smile growing wider.

  
“You can’t resist me, I’m just too charming,” he laughed, muscles relaxing as he pushed the though of his soulmate to the back of his mind, ignoring the guilt that action brought curling in his chest.

  
Barbara rolled her eyes in fond exasperation.

  
“Come on, bathroom. I wont be the one explaining it to Alfred if we get makeup all of the carpet,” she started to usher him through the door.

“I know the way to the bathroom,” he grumbled, batting away her guiding hands.

  
“Better get a move on then, chop chop,” she smirked.

  
Once they reached the room, Barbara directed him to sit on the toilet.

  
“You’re getting too tall for me to do this while you’re standing,” she joked lightly.

  
Jason rolled his eyes, but sat obediently.

  
The next half an hour(And honestly, that it took half an hour baffled him) was a blur of concealers, foundations and colour matching, or was it colour contrasting? His head was spinning a little and he hoped Babs would help him out the next couple times he had to do this before he got the hang of it. Not that he couldn’t manage on his own of course!

  
One thing making it easier to cover the marks that it would be for actual injuries was the lack of pain or a change in texture of apparent scratches.

  
“Aaand, done!” she exclaimed a flourish of her makeup brush. She gestured to Jason to look in the mirror while she started to pack up her supplies.

  
The boy approached the mirror reluctantly, the situation bringing to mind what had happen three days earlier when he’d first found out about his soulmate. This time his skin looked smooth and unblemished, he took a moment to marvel at Barbara’s skill in making it look so natural even as guilt and bitterness curled in his stomach. Hiding the marks like this felt like a betrayal. If he couldn’t help his soulmate, surely the least he could do was acknowledge their pain and wear their shared link with pride.

  
No. That’s stupid. His soulmate’s privacy is still more important and reporters getting a hold of this… well, he already knows how that would turn out.

  
“It looks great,” he quirks a half hearted smile at Babs behind him in the mirror. Her smile in return is sad with understanding. Jason hates it. He doesn’t want there to be anything to understand. He’d rather have no soulmate at all than one he’s so helpless to save, it’d be what he deserves.

  
“Of course there’s clothes to consider too, I see a lot of long sleeves in your future,” she jokes. Her expression still subdued even as she tries to brighten the mood.

  
“I know,” he returns in a clipped manner. He moves to run a hand through his hair, but stops at the thought that he might disturb the new face of makeup.

  
“Sorry. I mean, I can manage from here,” he turns to look at her, his posture back to slouching despondently. It’s better than tense and ready to fight… he thinks.

  
“Okay. Well. If you need any help-.”

  
“I’ll be fine,” he cut across, eyes skittering away from her guiltily at his coarse behaviour, but offering no apology this time.  
“Sure. Bruce has ordered some makeup for you, I’m jealous, it’s pretty high end, but he never can go simple. Until that arrives, you can use mine. I’ll be in tomorrow morning to help. Alfred says you’re back to school tomorrow, so, ah, enjoy your last day of I guess,” she winces even as she says the word ‘enjoy’.

  
“You’ll need to do this for patrol too, you can’t rely on hiding in the dark forever, so you better practice. I’ll leave some stuff here,” she continues when he doesn’t respond.

  
“Yeah, uh, thanks,” He makes an aborted move to gesture at the makeup and turns it into an awkward wave.

  
“I’ll, uh, my room. Practice. Bye,” he gets out before darting for the door, throwing up his hand in acknowledgement of her returned awkwardly sad ‘see you’.

  
When he gets back to his bedroom he shuts the door firmly and leans back against it, sliding down until he’s sitting with his arms on his knees. He can’t even bury his face in his hands because that would ruin the makeup that Babs just put on. God, why does his life have to be so shit?

  
He huffs out a tired sigh. Another day in the life of Jason Todd. He smiles bitterly. This turn of events just makes sense really. It’s karma, or the universe checking his ego. He’d gained a home, a guardian, Robin, an Alfred, so of course he had to lose a happy life with his soulmate to balance the scales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not used to writing Barbara, especially not at this stage in her life, so please tell me how I did :).  
> ~Leaf


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, I’ve had a frantic plotting session since I last posted, so hopefully everything is a little more cohesive now. I was not expecting people to like my trashy self-indulgent soulmate fic

Amongst all this anger and worry, being Robin as pretty much the only thing that still made him truly happy. Beating ass and taking names. Protecting the citizens of Gotham and putting away no good criminals. All his tightly coiled and supressed frustration was allowed free and the lies from his civilian life melted away. He was Robin, half the dynamic duo, hope of Gotham.

  
No stupid arguments, no worrying about a person he knows nothing about just because the universe says he should, no idiots looking down on him because of where he came from. Just the blistering wind, the blinding city lights, the choking smoke, the stuttering gunshots and harsh shouts. Just him and Gotham. And Batman of course, looming ever protective and judgemental behind the boy, pretending he doesn’t find his jokes funny.

  
He jumped to the next roof, the wind stinging his skin. Batman flowed behind him, every movement carefully controlled, a sharp contrast to his own rambunctious and unpredictable leaps and bounds. As he trained more and became more experienced, he’d started adding an increasing number of flips and dramatically flared swings.

  
Even with these performance like moves reminiscent of the last Robin, Jason made sure not to let go of his blunt and dirty crime alley roots. All together it was a strange mix of bright and dark, precise and flamboyant, making the style his own.

  
A woman’s scream pierced the night and Robin immediately turned on his heel, cape fluttering as he sped towards the sound. The line of his grappling hook whizzed and buzzed familiarly as he used it to bridge gaps he couldn’t have made without it.

  
His small size allowed him through pathways Batman couldn’t go and his lesser weight made him faster. Batman said he needed to conserve his energy more, but wasn’t making it there on time the most important thing? He quickly left his mentor behind as he doggedly chased the now quieter begs for mercy. The sound made his blood boil.

  
When he reached the group of men menacing a young woman, he didn’t hesitate to drop down into the alleyway, fists and batarangs flying.

  
As soon as an opening made itself apparent, the woman bolted, quickly turning a corner and not looking back. A true Gothamite, she knew not to stick around when capes got involved. She could just as easily be mistaken for a hostile as her attackers in a situation so charged and even the protection of a hero couldn't be absolute in a place so dangerous.

  
There were seven men, most of them armed with knives, crowbars and the like, but one was sporting a gleaming new Glock held threateningly, clumsily, out in front of him.

Already in the thick of it, Jason didn’t have time to properly survey his opponents.

  
His initial attack had left one man on the ground groaning and another cradling an arm that likely had a fractured bone his crowbar abandoned uselessly a few feet away. The group stared him down, teeth bared in threat, a mix of menacing and afraid. Small time crooks like them didn't know what to do when faced with the boy wonder's brightly coloured visage, stark against the dull grey of the buildings towering over them.

  
Jason grinned.

  
“You really oughta take better care of your tools, they might get damaged,” he quipped, the arm he swept in demonstration indicating both the fallen crowbar and the remaining men.

  
One of the addressed men growled in anger and charged forward, knife held out ready to take the boy down fast, so they could escape before the bat arrived. The man’s boldness encouraged a number of his fellows and they joined the attack growling and spitting out vulgar insults.

  
Jason let himself get lost in the rush, dodging hits and striking out wildly. One man dropped, another. The man with the fractured arm cursed at the sight of his rapidly depleting group of allies and decided it was all or nothing time. He leapt at Jason with a shout and was just as easily swiped aside, falling limply onto concrete.

  
Two men remained in front of him with squared shoulders. One had shaking hands gripped tightly around a small knife and the other and the other brandished a tire iron, face white with fear. The two opposing sides stared each other down for one tense second before Jason exploded into action. There was a flurry of movement as they dodged around each other, these guys had the common sense to try avoiding Jason’s vicious strikes, the only reason they were still standing unlike their fellows.

  
Just as the boy brought down the final man, with a dramatic flourish of a batarang, there was a flicker of movement behind him. He began to turn, glad his mentor had finally arrived and ready to throw out a few mocking taunts about his lacking speed. Possibly something about his age getting to him or crime fighting wearing on his knees.

  
“Robin!” a gravelly warning shout snapped from another place entirely.

  
He sucked in a sharp breath, eyes wide, and began to zig away from what he now identified as the final mook, the one with the gun. He must have lost track of him in the fight, there had been so much going on, he-!

A gunshot echoed in the night; the sound not uncommon on the Gotham streets.

Jason fell backwards, white hot pain piercing his gut. He heard the flutter of a cape and the sound of a fist meeting flesh. He saw the man drop beside him and then Batman loomed over to him, a great black spectre of worry. Had he already made that joke? He… wasn’t sure. It was getting difficult to think.

  
He tried to move, to stand, to shuffle a little bit sideways even, but all he got was a punishing spear of pain. He groaned and curled in on himself, even that action sending needles through his blood.

  
“RoBiN,” Batman’s words came distorted through the buzzing whine in his ears and the icy cotton of shock blurring his thought.  
“R’ **B** nn, s **t** ’ - _k_ E!”

  
His vision was full of spots and he could barely breathe through his fear and shock.

  
In that moment he was certain; he was going to die.

  
_“No!”_ an unfamiliar voice crying out in desperate anguish was the last thing he heard before he lost consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed, feel free to let me know in a comment ;) I've never done a fight scene before, so I hope I've done it justice  
> ~Leaf


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's what was previously the second half of the last chapter, it got loooong :)

The first thing he registered upon waking was the comforting warmth of a blanket over him.

  
He felt mostly fuzzy with pain killers, but still he could feel a buzzing anxiousness in the back of his head that felt somehow distinct from him.

  
He opened his eyes and squinted against the light. He blinked into clarity and surveyed his surroundings. He was on a cot in the medical section of the Batcave. There was a tightness of his skin around his gut that told of stitches and a heaviness of his limbs that suggested a long bout of unconsciousness.

  
“Master Jason!” Thar perfect mix of scolding and worried sounded from his left.

  
The boy immediately halted his attempts to heave himself out of the bed.

  
“Uh, hi Alfie,” he smiled guiltily.

  
“I hope you were not intending to aggravate your injuries,” Alfred eyed him reproachfully.

  
“Of course not!” he exclaimed, jolting up to reassure him and wincing at the uncomfortable tugging sensation that action caused. Batman must really have him on the good drugs if trying to sit up just felt weird rather than agonising.

  
He looked away from the blistered looking skin on his wrists, not wanting to know what had been happening to his soulmate while he hadn’t been conscious. More and more, Jason was covering those marks, with makeup or clothes, even outside of public appearances. Looking at them made him feel sick.

  
“I’m, ah, all good,” he smiled unconvincingly.

  
“You are recovering from a bullet wound, you are not as you say ‘all good’ Master Jason,” the man corrected him with a gently disapproving worry.

  
The reminder of how he got his current injury sent a wave of unease swirling through his gut. He determinedly squashed the accompanying prick of fear. He’d nearly-. He could’ve-. He’d though he would-.

  
“How long was I out?” he asked firmly. If he needed to stick to some cover story about a spontaneous holiday or something, then he needed to start memorising details.

  
“Two days Master Jason. It is now Sunday.”

  
Two days. Right. Two days wasn’t so bad. Honestly, he’d expected far worse. He’d been ready to be informed that he’d spent three weeks in a coma and now had stacks of homework to catch up on. The thought of his maths teacher’s disapproving glare as she forced him to stay after school practising algebra problems, in a room that had no right being so cold in a school funded by Bruce Wayne himself, made him shudder.

  
“Is B…?” he asked leadingly.

  
“Master Bruce is currently dismantling the group those young hooligans worked with,”

  
“Still?” Jason asked in surprise.

  
“He has refused to retire to bed until either the job is done or you have awoken,” the man sighed exhaustedly.

The boy winced. Yeah, that sounded like him.

  
“Will you-. When he gets back-. He should- just go to sleep. We can talk when we’re both feeling a little less like we’re about to pass out,” Jason smiled wryly.

  
“Of course Master Jason,” Alfred nodded “Perhaps you should continue to rest now.”

  
“Yeah. Yeah,” he nodded.

  
“You can- I’ll be fine,” the boy assured.

  
“If you are certain,” the man hesitated.

  
“Yeah, I’ll sleep now.”

  
Alfred nodded and left to get on with whatever butlery duties he needed to get on with at that moment. 

* * *

  
Jason spent the next few hours with his eyes scrunched up, trying futilely to fall, and stay, unconscious. He felt worn and lethargic, but just couldn’t stop thinking about the event of a few days earlier. 

  
Was he really so useless that some random mook nearly killed him? He couldn’t seem to so anything right lately. B was pissed with him for being too violent with the criminals, Alfred was obviously disappointed with his inability to adjust to his new school and his soulmate probably hated him for not helping them when they were obviously in pain.

  
_‘Don’t be stupid.’_

  
Jason could have almost believed it was his own conscience berating him for being so fatalistic if it weren’t for the quavering note of worry that laced through the words echoing in his head.

  
The boy sucked in a sharp breath of surprise, flailing so wildly that he almost fell off his bed. He’d heard about the dangerous telepaths Batman had fought in the past, but would one actually alert Robin to their presence just to call him stupid? Wait. Never mind, scratch that. Batman’s rogues would be exactly that petty and childish. 

  
It was probably a ploy to get him paranoid and worrying. To get him overthinking a mild taunt while the villain enacted their true dastardly plot. It was what he would do if he had the opportunity or inclination. The image of Batman running around like a headless chicken because an eleven-year-old dropped by his mind to call him juvenile names was almost enough to make him laugh despite the looming worry.

  
An unprompted surge of guilt welled up in him.

  
_‘Frick! Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,’_ The voice returned.

  
“Who are you? What do you want?!” Jason hissed, carefully keeping his voice quiet enough that he wouldn’t notify Alfred who was dusting some of Batman’s trophies on another level of the cave. The man had been remaining conspicuously within shouting distane. His British stiff upper lip wouldn’t let him actively express worry, but this closeness told the boy all he needed to know. He wondered idly at the big bad villain censoring his swears.

  
_‘You- don’t have to speak out loud; think and I’ll hear you,’_ the voice soothed.

  
The boy screwed up his eyes and focused on his intended message.

  
_‘WHO ARE YOU?’_ He repeated insistently.

  
He got the impression of slight regret and a wince.

  
_‘You don’t have to yell, like I said, think what you want to say to me, and I’ll hear you,’_ the voice sounded a little strained now.

  
_‘Who. Are. You.’_ He thought one final time, beginning to grow angry with and frightened by the continued evasiveness. What if they really were stalling tactics? Was this stranger going to try and hurt Batman? Maybe they were searching his mind for secrets without him noticing. His alarm prompted him to begin struggling up from the bed, ready to make an urgent march in search of help.

  
_‘I’m not going to hurt anyone,’_ the voice reassured, sounding ineffably hurt _‘You can call me… Blue,’_ the voice finally gave a name. Well, not really. Jason knew what the phrase ‘you can call me’ meant. It was an alias. The slight co-operation prompted him to stop… for now. He slumped back down onto the bed, exhausted by even that small amount of activity.

  
_‘So ‘Blue’, care to tell me why you’re **speaking in my mind!** ’_ Jason’s hand twitched with the urge to reach out and fling himself out of the bed, calling for Alfred to call B because it was an emergency.  
He heard a sigh, something strange not to echo out loud.

  
_‘I would’ve thought you knew at least that much,’_ it replied, wryly regretful.

  
The boy scowled.

  
_‘Why don’t you stop being so vague and just tell me!’_ he snapped.

  
_‘Sorry. You’re right. I believe the way most people put it is something like ‘in times of great stress a mental link can form.’. Jason, you-. You thought you were going to **die** ,’_ despite it being in his head, Blue’s words sounded choked with emotion. 

  
Jason’s heart skipped a beat, all plans of running to Batman with tales of villainous plots fled his mind.

  
_‘You’re my soulmate,_ ’ he finally realised.

  
_‘And you’re mine,’_ Blue returned, sounding heartbreakingly hopeful, but so resignedly weary at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote another Alfred scene, why do I keep doing this to myself? I know I can't write him well. Please give feedback in the comments, thanks for reading! :)  
> ~Leaf

**Author's Note:**

> Another old fic which I've refurbished and continued. Please review! :)  
> ~Leaf


End file.
